Monday, January 31, 2011

Take This Tune


My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

This week's prompt is actually your choice of two songs from the movie The Big Chill.  Jamie says...
One of my favorite movies and soundtracks is "The Big Chill" with its window on a generation. It featured 14 great songs that acted both as music for the film and commentary on the interaction of the characters. This week you get your choice of two songs to use for your Take This Tune prompt.

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies too.  The song choices are Ain't Too Proud to Beg from The Temptations and You Can't Always Get What You Want from The Rolling Stones.

I chose The Stones.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need

My blog pal Lois wrote yesterday that she and her husband found a full service car wash.  They stopped in and got the works.  She wrote, "Those four sets of hands represent four families that have jobs.  So we'll be patronizing this place often."


Now, Lois and her husband have recently relocated to Ohio.  Ohio is getting snow these days, so you wouldn't think getting the car washed would qualify as a need.  Oh you could make the case, as Lois did, that the winter salt on the roads makes it necessary to periodically get a vehicle washed.  That stuff can cause corrosion which can lead to rust, which can lead to an early trade in for a new car.

Need versus Want.

One needs to be aware of what winter salt can do to a vehicle's undercarriage and exterior paint.  Then one can pay the relatively low cost of a full service car wash periodically to avoid needing to pay thousands later for repairs, or a replacement.  It's like getting the oil changed or having your transmission checked.  It's basic preventive care to secure your investment. 


The side benefit is that one's patronage helps another family by providing a job, so that family can meet its own needs.


I can extend that analogy to just about anything.  But my main point is this...what do you do if you have money left after you pay the mortgage/rent, buy groceries, and pay your subsistence bills?  You save some, if you're smart, and you give some to charities.  And you spend the rest on entertainment.


That's what keeps the economy chugging along.  Sometimes it rolls downhill like an out of control rock.  Other times it slows to a trickle like a dried up stream bed.

"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure.  It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."  Dolly Levi, from the movie Hello Dolly

In December 2010, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the national unemployment rate was 9.1%.  That's so high, and I feel for all those who are still having trouble finding jobs.  They face so many challenges.  I've been there and it sucks.


But I always try to find the positive.  So 90.9% of the working age population is employed.  Most of us are working in this country.  For some it's still a struggle just to make the monthly nut, but they are finding ways to get it done.


And some of us are making the monthly nut and then some.  So we're saving as much as we can against the possibility that the economy might hiccup again.  We want to be prepared and we want to be cautious.  But we can also help the economy by giving in to what we want once in awhile.


I guess my point is, don't let fear stop you from doing what you want.  If you're struggling, of course you'll fall back as far as you can to meet your basic needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter.  


But if you are reasonably secure, then spend responsibly.  The responsible spending of those who can do so saves jobs, and can sometimes create jobs.


Maybe you can't always get what you want.  But when you can, you might find someone else gets what they need.

Take This Tune


My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

This week's prompt is actually your choice of two songs from the movie The Big Chill.  Jamie says...
One of my favorite movies and soundtracks is "The Big Chill" with its window on a generation. It featured 14 great songs that acted both as music for the film and commentary on the interaction of the characters. This week you get your choice of two songs to use for your Take This Tune prompt.

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies too.  The song choices are Ain't Too Proud to Beg from The Temptations and You Can't Always Get What You Want from The Rolling Stones.

I chose The Stones.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need

My blog pal Lois wrote yesterday that she and her husband found a full service car wash.  They stopped in and got the works.  She wrote, "Those four sets of hands represent four families that have jobs.  So we'll be patronizing this place often."


Now, Lois and her husband have recently relocated to Ohio.  Ohio is getting snow these days, so you wouldn't think getting the car washed would qualify as a need.  Oh you could make the case, as Lois did, that the winter salt on the roads makes it necessary to periodically get a vehicle washed.  That stuff can cause corrosion which can lead to rust, which can lead to an early trade in for a new car.

Need versus Want.

One needs to be aware of what winter salt can do to a vehicle's undercarriage and exterior paint.  Then one can pay the relatively low cost of a full service car wash periodically to avoid needing to pay thousands later for repairs, or a replacement.  It's like getting the oil changed or having your transmission checked.  It's basic preventive care to secure your investment. 


The side benefit is that one's patronage helps another family by providing a job, so that family can meet its own needs.


I can extend that analogy to just about anything.  But my main point is this...what do you do if you have money left after you pay the mortgage/rent, buy groceries, and pay your subsistence bills?  You save some, if you're smart, and you give some to charities.  And you spend the rest on entertainment.


That's what keeps the economy chugging along.  Sometimes it rolls downhill like an out of control rock.  Other times it slows to a trickle like a dried up stream bed.

"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure.  It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."  Dolly Levi, from the movie Hello Dolly

In December 2010, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the national unemployment rate was 9.1%.  That's so high, and I feel for all those who are still having trouble finding jobs.  They face so many challenges.  I've been there and it sucks.


But I always try to find the positive.  So 90.9% of the working age population is employed.  Most of us are working in this country.  For some it's still a struggle just to make the monthly nut, but they are finding ways to get it done.


And some of us are making the monthly nut and then some.  So we're saving as much as we can against the possibility that the economy might hiccup again.  We want to be prepared and we want to be cautious.  But we can also help the economy by giving in to what we want once in awhile.


I guess my point is, don't let fear stop you from doing what you want.  If you're struggling, of course you'll fall back as far as you can to meet your basic needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter.  


But if you are reasonably secure, then spend responsibly.  The responsible spending of those who can do so saves jobs, and can sometimes create jobs.


Maybe you can't always get what you want.  But when you can, you might find someone else gets what they need.

Take This Tune


My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

This week's prompt is actually your choice of two songs from the movie The Big Chill.  Jamie says...
One of my favorite movies and soundtracks is "The Big Chill" with its window on a generation. It featured 14 great songs that acted both as music for the film and commentary on the interaction of the characters. This week you get your choice of two songs to use for your Take This Tune prompt.

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies too.  The song choices are Ain't Too Proud to Beg from The Temptations and You Can't Always Get What You Want from The Rolling Stones.

I chose The Stones.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need

My blog pal Lois wrote yesterday that she and her husband found a full service car wash.  They stopped in and got the works.  She wrote, "Those four sets of hands represent four families that have jobs.  So we'll be patronizing this place often."


Now, Lois and her husband have recently relocated to Ohio.  Ohio is getting snow these days, so you wouldn't think getting the car washed would qualify as a need.  Oh you could make the case, as Lois did, that the winter salt on the roads makes it necessary to periodically get a vehicle washed.  That stuff can cause corrosion which can lead to rust, which can lead to an early trade in for a new car.

Need versus Want.

One needs to be aware of what winter salt can do to a vehicle's undercarriage and exterior paint.  Then one can pay the relatively low cost of a full service car wash periodically to avoid needing to pay thousands later for repairs, or a replacement.  It's like getting the oil changed or having your transmission checked.  It's basic preventive care to secure your investment. 


The side benefit is that one's patronage helps another family by providing a job, so that family can meet its own needs.


I can extend that analogy to just about anything.  But my main point is this...what do you do if you have money left after you pay the mortgage/rent, buy groceries, and pay your subsistence bills?  You save some, if you're smart, and you give some to charities.  And you spend the rest on entertainment.


That's what keeps the economy chugging along.  Sometimes it rolls downhill like an out of control rock.  Other times it slows to a trickle like a dried up stream bed.

"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure.  It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."  Dolly Levi, from the movie Hello Dolly

In December 2010, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the national unemployment rate was 9.1%.  That's so high, and I feel for all those who are still having trouble finding jobs.  They face so many challenges.  I've been there and it sucks.


But I always try to find the positive.  So 90.9% of the working age population is employed.  Most of us are working in this country.  For some it's still a struggle just to make the monthly nut, but they are finding ways to get it done.


And some of us are making the monthly nut and then some.  So we're saving as much as we can against the possibility that the economy might hiccup again.  We want to be prepared and we want to be cautious.  But we can also help the economy by giving in to what we want once in awhile.


I guess my point is, don't let fear stop you from doing what you want.  If you're struggling, of course you'll fall back as far as you can to meet your basic needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter.  


But if you are reasonably secure, then spend responsibly.  The responsible spending of those who can do so saves jobs, and can sometimes create jobs.


Maybe you can't always get what you want.  But when you can, you might find someone else gets what they need.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Five on Friday Set 53


So I debated for awhile whether to embark on Year 2 of Five on Friday by calling this Volume 2 Set 1.  In the end I decided that was silly.  So Set 53 it is!

I've never really been much of a concert-goer, but I have seen quite a few performers in smaller venues like jazz clubs and such.  Just after I turned 21 and could actually get into a nightclub to see a show, I won tickets from a radio contest because I happened to know that although Rick Derringer played the guitar solo on the single release of Free Ride by The Edgar Winter Group, it was actually Ronnie Montrose who had the solo on the album They Only Come Out at Night.


I never thought it was all that obscure of a fact, but I won the tickets after about 40 callers got it wrong.  Go figure.


I was happy because I got to see one of my favorite groups, The Guess Who.  It wasn't the original line up, but I lucked out that it was one of the times that Randy Bachman was back with Jim Kale.  Alas and alack, I did not get to see Burton Cummings.


Stay tuned gang...I think there might be a round of Five Degrees of Musical Progression coming up soon!


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones


If you've never joined in, give it a try.  I know you've got some favorite music you'd like to share with the FoF gang.  Here's how to play along.


1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.
2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. You may choose a particular theme to share with us, or post random tunes if that's your vibe for the day. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.
2a. Don't feel restricted by the tracks listed on Playlist.com. And don't be discouraged if the Embed code won't work. You're welcome to use any type of media to share your Sets.
3. Be sure to sign Mr Linky so everyone can visit your Set.
4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.

Go forth and enjoy music!


Five on Friday Set 53


So I debated for awhile whether to embark on Year 2 of Five on Friday by calling this Volume 2 Set 1.  In the end I decided that was silly.  So Set 53 it is!

I've never really been much of a concert-goer, but I have seen quite a few performers in smaller venues like jazz clubs and such.  Just after I turned 21 and could actually get into a nightclub to see a show, I won tickets from a radio contest because I happened to know that although Rick Derringer played the guitar solo on the single release of Free Ride by The Edgar Winter Group, it was actually Ronnie Montrose who had the solo on the album They Only Come Out at Night.


I never thought it was all that obscure of a fact, but I won the tickets after about 40 callers got it wrong.  Go figure.


I was happy because I got to see one of my favorite groups, The Guess Who.  It wasn't the original line up, but I lucked out that it was one of the times that Randy Bachman was back with Jim Kale.  Alas and alack, I did not get to see Burton Cummings.


Stay tuned gang...I think there might be a round of Five Degrees of Musical Progression coming up soon!


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones


If you've never joined in, give it a try.  I know you've got some favorite music you'd like to share with the FoF gang.  Here's how to play along.


1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.
2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. You may choose a particular theme to share with us, or post random tunes if that's your vibe for the day. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.
2a. Don't feel restricted by the tracks listed on Playlist.com. And don't be discouraged if the Embed code won't work. You're welcome to use any type of media to share your Sets.
3. Be sure to sign Mr Linky so everyone can visit your Set.
4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.

Go forth and enjoy music!


Five on Friday Set 53


So I debated for awhile whether to embark on Year 2 of Five on Friday by calling this Volume 2 Set 1.  In the end I decided that was silly.  So Set 53 it is!

I've never really been much of a concert-goer, but I have seen quite a few performers in smaller venues like jazz clubs and such.  Just after I turned 21 and could actually get into a nightclub to see a show, I won tickets from a radio contest because I happened to know that although Rick Derringer played the guitar solo on the single release of Free Ride by The Edgar Winter Group, it was actually Ronnie Montrose who had the solo on the album They Only Come Out at Night.


I never thought it was all that obscure of a fact, but I won the tickets after about 40 callers got it wrong.  Go figure.


I was happy because I got to see one of my favorite groups, The Guess Who.  It wasn't the original line up, but I lucked out that it was one of the times that Randy Bachman was back with Jim Kale.  Alas and alack, I did not get to see Burton Cummings.


Stay tuned gang...I think there might be a round of Five Degrees of Musical Progression coming up soon!


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones


If you've never joined in, give it a try.  I know you've got some favorite music you'd like to share with the FoF gang.  Here's how to play along.


1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.
2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. You may choose a particular theme to share with us, or post random tunes if that's your vibe for the day. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.
2a. Don't feel restricted by the tracks listed on Playlist.com. And don't be discouraged if the Embed code won't work. You're welcome to use any type of media to share your Sets.
3. Be sure to sign Mr Linky so everyone can visit your Set.
4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.

Go forth and enjoy music!


Thursday, January 27, 2011

Thursday 13 from the Wayback Machine

I used to be silly.

I used to have real mojo in the silly department.  When I first started posting to message boards, I was the Sultan of Silly.

But that kind of silly really doesn't lend itself to blogging.  I don't really write comedy, although I do admit that I have written things that have been kind of funny.  But I'm not a joke teller or a comedian.  I'm certainly no satirist.

I do have a sense of humor.  And I just want to have a few silly moments.

There are a few of my Soul Patrol brothers and sisters who remain here in our blogging community.  Talk about silly?  Oh man!  We were all about the silly on the American Idol message boards way back in 2006 for Season 5.  We supported our gray haired Soul Man Taylor Hicks, and we came up with some off the wall crazy silly stuff.

So, as American Idol returns for Season 10, I want to relive some of the silly things I enjoyed with my SP pals on the message boards and in chat rooms.  Most of it won't mean anything to many of you, but that's OK because there's non-specific silly stuff too.

Anyway, indulge me.  I'm feeling a little nostalgic for some good times I recall.  Step into the Wayback Machine with me.  I've added some clarifying words to the original post, just for, well, for clarity.  These are in italics and parentheses.  Everything else is from the original post.

Thursday 13 - 100th Post, originally posted here at Trav's Thoughts on 8 February 2007.

Well gang, today is my 100th post.  YAY ME!  (Editor's note:  I just checked my dashboard and found that I recently posted #1400.)

In honor of this milestone occasion, my 13 today is a little different.  I met many of you over on the American Idol boards, specifically on the Taylor Hicks board.  We had great times and lots of fun.

And we celebrated milestone posts.  We celebrated with post parties and silliness.  We did some goofy stuff y'all.

For my 13 today, I present 13 of my favorite ways to celebrate a milestone post.  Don't worry if you have no idea what any of this means.  It's all about the silly!
  1. **tosses confetti and walnuts**
  2. **tosses flaming walnuts while juggling mittened kittens**  Note:  The mittens are so I don't get scratched.  (Editor's note:  I get that it doesn't make any sense.  How could I toss something while juggling something else?  Don't try to work it out.  Just go with the silly.)
  3. **does a hop jig, a soul twitch, and a left leg swing with extra thigh action while juggling leprechauns and singing in the rain**  Note:  Regrettably, sometimes a kitten gets dropped.  That's normally no big deal, 'cause kitties land on their feet.  But, see, the mittens make kitty feet very slippery.  Thus the move to leprechauns.
  4. **hops in the T-bird, screeches donuts in the driveway of the Original Soul Patrol place, breaks out in random song**  (Editor's note:  The Original Soul Patrol place was a thread that the moderators would constantly delete because it didn't really conform to the AI message board rules.  So we would restart it and continue to break the rules until they deleted it again.  It was one of those "run back home" threads, like a safe house where we congregated for conversation about anything.  That's what broke the rules...we were "off topic" in terms of not posting news or thoughts about our Idol.  But it was the way our community operated, before we discovered chat rooms.)
  5. **takes a quick running start, does a round off into successive back hand springs, followed by a punch front into a full twisting triple back somersault in pike position, sticks the landing without stepping out of bounds, vaults forward into a hand stand**  (Editor's note:  In my message board youth, I was a master gymnast and quite the amazing acrobat.)
  6. **plants feet, takes firm grasp of one wrist and one ankle, gets a good three spin wind-up, and tosses Gary Coleman with enough force to launch him into orbit**  Note:  Now you have to be careful with this particular celebration.  Most of the time we fail to heave Mr Coleman with sufficient trajectory and force to actually achieve stable orbit.  On those occasions we have special ships at sea to track his orbital decay on highly sophisticated radar.  Unfortunately, the radar has glitches and we inevitably lose track of Mr Coleman's re-entry.  Once, he actually crashed down in the OSP backyard and nearly killed the pool boy!  (Editor's note:  Clearly this is not so silly since Mr Coleman's death in May last year and there is no disrespect intended to his loved ones.)
  7. **see above, only substitute Emmanuel Lewis**  Note:  The diminutive star of the program Webster has a much higher success rate in achieving stable orbit.  Unfortunately, we tend to forget he's up there.
  8. No milestone celebration is complete without an open bar.  I'm a Gentleman Jack man myself, but we have a wide variety of spirits to satisfy the most diverse pallets.  For our Canadian Soul Patrollers, we have plenty of watered down American brews...wait...no, I've got that one mixed up.  We have all the best Canadian brews for our friends from north of the border.  Yeah - that's what I meant to say.  Oh yeah, for those non-drinkers we provide bottomless pitchers of ice cold milk and sweet tea - 2 of our man Taylor's favorite drinks. 
  9. We've had celebrations disrupted many times when someone forgot to shut the barn door and lock up the corral.  The cow gets a little crazy, llamas chase the ducks from thread to threat, while the twins Madness and Mayhem wreak havoc.  And then the Damm Duck breaks the thread and we all end up in banned camp.  (Editor's note:  This is one of those where you kind of had to be there.  I wish I had saved some of the threads to show you the sheer wackiness of the things people wrote.)
  10. Water balloons!  I almost forgot water balloons!  And whipped cream drawings of Onions and Ears and Tatas oh my!
  11. A favored spectacle during any milestone post celebration is the appearance of thread hoppers and the occasional flasher.  Sometimes all it takes is a little of this - (.)(.) - and you don't need a reason to celebrate.  Stare at 'em long enough...you'll figure out what they are.
  12. The party really gets hopping when the TK's show up.  TK stands for Thread Killers, but it's not what you think.  See, sometimes our board would be invaded by the dreaded trolls whose mission was to ruin all the fun and get people all ripped up and mad at each other. TK's started off as a thread for peeps who thought they were death to any thread they joined. Turns out, they are just about the sweetest group. They feel so bad about killing threads, that they just can't seem to let anyone be the last to post!! And when those dreadful trolls appear, TK's zoom into the thread and hi-jack it so fast, the troll has no choice but to begone!! And then the party is back on baby!!
  13. (Editor's note:  This last one is me being a flirt.  It pulls together the things that Soul Patrol gals love about Taylor's performances and was usually written out line by line in a chat or on a message board, as a tease with pauses in between to let people post their hoots and hollars.)  **puts on leather jacket, whips out harmonica, tilts head, batts eyelashes, wails Taylor-style on Tobbaco Road, bends knees, shakes tail with sexy mambo hip swivels, leather jacket flapping about the onion, numerous left leg swings with extra hip and thigh action, finishing with a fast and furious Taylor-go-round that makes me so dizzy I fall on the floor for one last fuzzy belly shot**
Now some of that stuff I didn't come up with.  I took what others had posted and made it my own...put my own silly spin on it, if you will.  The great thing about that Taylor Hicks message board and the Soul Patrollers who posted there was the sense of community.  We were fiercely devoted to voting our guy through every week.  We were dead serious about his talent and that drew us together.


In between working hard to bring in fans and votes, and to rebut the critics whenever and wherever we found them, we were outrageously silly.  The message boards, and later the chat rooms we ultimately established after Season 5 ended, always felt like we were actually in the room with each other.  Although we couldn't see or hear each other, the way we wrote in post after post made us feel as if we were.


It's hard to explain.  The boards felt real.  So when somebody wrote something like **tosses confetti**, it felt like a physical thing that had just been done.  And so we all piled in to write the things that we would do if we were all gathered together in a room actually tossing confetti.


Of course, if we'd really been together we probably wouldn't have been throwing flaming walnuts or juggling kittens...


At least, I don't think we would.

Good times. 

Thursday 13 from the Wayback Machine

I used to be silly.

I used to have real mojo in the silly department.  When I first started posting to message boards, I was the Sultan of Silly.

But that kind of silly really doesn't lend itself to blogging.  I don't really write comedy, although I do admit that I have written things that have been kind of funny.  But I'm not a joke teller or a comedian.  I'm certainly no satirist.

I do have a sense of humor.  And I just want to have a few silly moments.

There are a few of my Soul Patrol brothers and sisters who remain here in our blogging community.  Talk about silly?  Oh man!  We were all about the silly on the American Idol message boards way back in 2006 for Season 5.  We supported our gray haired Soul Man Taylor Hicks, and we came up with some off the wall crazy silly stuff.

So, as American Idol returns for Season 10, I want to relive some of the silly things I enjoyed with my SP pals on the message boards and in chat rooms.  Most of it won't mean anything to many of you, but that's OK because there's non-specific silly stuff too.

Anyway, indulge me.  I'm feeling a little nostalgic for some good times I recall.  Step into the Wayback Machine with me.  I've added some clarifying words to the original post, just for, well, for clarity.  These are in italics and parentheses.  Everything else is from the original post.

Thursday 13 - 100th Post, originally posted here at Trav's Thoughts on 8 February 2007.

Well gang, today is my 100th post.  YAY ME!  (Editor's note:  I just checked my dashboard and found that I recently posted #1400.)

In honor of this milestone occasion, my 13 today is a little different.  I met many of you over on the American Idol boards, specifically on the Taylor Hicks board.  We had great times and lots of fun.

And we celebrated milestone posts.  We celebrated with post parties and silliness.  We did some goofy stuff y'all.

For my 13 today, I present 13 of my favorite ways to celebrate a milestone post.  Don't worry if you have no idea what any of this means.  It's all about the silly!
  1. **tosses confetti and walnuts**
  2. **tosses flaming walnuts while juggling mittened kittens**  Note:  The mittens are so I don't get scratched.  (Editor's note:  I get that it doesn't make any sense.  How could I toss something while juggling something else?  Don't try to work it out.  Just go with the silly.)
  3. **does a hop jig, a soul twitch, and a left leg swing with extra thigh action while juggling leprechauns and singing in the rain**  Note:  Regrettably, sometimes a kitten gets dropped.  That's normally no big deal, 'cause kitties land on their feet.  But, see, the mittens make kitty feet very slippery.  Thus the move to leprechauns.
  4. **hops in the T-bird, screeches donuts in the driveway of the Original Soul Patrol place, breaks out in random song**  (Editor's note:  The Original Soul Patrol place was a thread that the moderators would constantly delete because it didn't really conform to the AI message board rules.  So we would restart it and continue to break the rules until they deleted it again.  It was one of those "run back home" threads, like a safe house where we congregated for conversation about anything.  That's what broke the rules...we were "off topic" in terms of not posting news or thoughts about our Idol.  But it was the way our community operated, before we discovered chat rooms.)
  5. **takes a quick running start, does a round off into successive back hand springs, followed by a punch front into a full twisting triple back somersault in pike position, sticks the landing without stepping out of bounds, vaults forward into a hand stand**  (Editor's note:  In my message board youth, I was a master gymnast and quite the amazing acrobat.)
  6. **plants feet, takes firm grasp of one wrist and one ankle, gets a good three spin wind-up, and tosses Gary Coleman with enough force to launch him into orbit**  Note:  Now you have to be careful with this particular celebration.  Most of the time we fail to heave Mr Coleman with sufficient trajectory and force to actually achieve stable orbit.  On those occasions we have special ships at sea to track his orbital decay on highly sophisticated radar.  Unfortunately, the radar has glitches and we inevitably lose track of Mr Coleman's re-entry.  Once, he actually crashed down in the OSP backyard and nearly killed the pool boy!  (Editor's note:  Clearly this is not so silly since Mr Coleman's death in May last year and there is no disrespect intended to his loved ones.)
  7. **see above, only substitute Emmanuel Lewis**  Note:  The diminutive star of the program Webster has a much higher success rate in achieving stable orbit.  Unfortunately, we tend to forget he's up there.
  8. No milestone celebration is complete without an open bar.  I'm a Gentleman Jack man myself, but we have a wide variety of spirits to satisfy the most diverse pallets.  For our Canadian Soul Patrollers, we have plenty of watered down American brews...wait...no, I've got that one mixed up.  We have all the best Canadian brews for our friends from north of the border.  Yeah - that's what I meant to say.  Oh yeah, for those non-drinkers we provide bottomless pitchers of ice cold milk and sweet tea - 2 of our man Taylor's favorite drinks. 
  9. We've had celebrations disrupted many times when someone forgot to shut the barn door and lock up the corral.  The cow gets a little crazy, llamas chase the ducks from thread to threat, while the twins Madness and Mayhem wreak havoc.  And then the Damm Duck breaks the thread and we all end up in banned camp.  (Editor's note:  This is one of those where you kind of had to be there.  I wish I had saved some of the threads to show you the sheer wackiness of the things people wrote.)
  10. Water balloons!  I almost forgot water balloons!  And whipped cream drawings of Onions and Ears and Tatas oh my!
  11. A favored spectacle during any milestone post celebration is the appearance of thread hoppers and the occasional flasher.  Sometimes all it takes is a little of this - (.)(.) - and you don't need a reason to celebrate.  Stare at 'em long enough...you'll figure out what they are.
  12. The party really gets hopping when the TK's show up.  TK stands for Thread Killers, but it's not what you think.  See, sometimes our board would be invaded by the dreaded trolls whose mission was to ruin all the fun and get people all ripped up and mad at each other. TK's started off as a thread for peeps who thought they were death to any thread they joined. Turns out, they are just about the sweetest group. They feel so bad about killing threads, that they just can't seem to let anyone be the last to post!! And when those dreadful trolls appear, TK's zoom into the thread and hi-jack it so fast, the troll has no choice but to begone!! And then the party is back on baby!!
  13. (Editor's note:  This last one is me being a flirt.  It pulls together the things that Soul Patrol gals love about Taylor's performances and was usually written out line by line in a chat or on a message board, as a tease with pauses in between to let people post their hoots and hollars.)  **puts on leather jacket, whips out harmonica, tilts head, batts eyelashes, wails Taylor-style on Tobbaco Road, bends knees, shakes tail with sexy mambo hip swivels, leather jacket flapping about the onion, numerous left leg swings with extra hip and thigh action, finishing with a fast and furious Taylor-go-round that makes me so dizzy I fall on the floor for one last fuzzy belly shot**
Now some of that stuff I didn't come up with.  I took what others had posted and made it my own...put my own silly spin on it, if you will.  The great thing about that Taylor Hicks message board and the Soul Patrollers who posted there was the sense of community.  We were fiercely devoted to voting our guy through every week.  We were dead serious about his talent and that drew us together.


In between working hard to bring in fans and votes, and to rebut the critics whenever and wherever we found them, we were outrageously silly.  The message boards, and later the chat rooms we ultimately established after Season 5 ended, always felt like we were actually in the room with each other.  Although we couldn't see or hear each other, the way we wrote in post after post made us feel as if we were.


It's hard to explain.  The boards felt real.  So when somebody wrote something like **tosses confetti**, it felt like a physical thing that had just been done.  And so we all piled in to write the things that we would do if we were all gathered together in a room actually tossing confetti.


Of course, if we'd really been together we probably wouldn't have been throwing flaming walnuts or juggling kittens...


At least, I don't think we would.

Good times. 

Thursday 13 from the Wayback Machine

I used to be silly.

I used to have real mojo in the silly department.  When I first started posting to message boards, I was the Sultan of Silly.

But that kind of silly really doesn't lend itself to blogging.  I don't really write comedy, although I do admit that I have written things that have been kind of funny.  But I'm not a joke teller or a comedian.  I'm certainly no satirist.

I do have a sense of humor.  And I just want to have a few silly moments.

There are a few of my Soul Patrol brothers and sisters who remain here in our blogging community.  Talk about silly?  Oh man!  We were all about the silly on the American Idol message boards way back in 2006 for Season 5.  We supported our gray haired Soul Man Taylor Hicks, and we came up with some off the wall crazy silly stuff.

So, as American Idol returns for Season 10, I want to relive some of the silly things I enjoyed with my SP pals on the message boards and in chat rooms.  Most of it won't mean anything to many of you, but that's OK because there's non-specific silly stuff too.

Anyway, indulge me.  I'm feeling a little nostalgic for some good times I recall.  Step into the Wayback Machine with me.  I've added some clarifying words to the original post, just for, well, for clarity.  These are in italics and parentheses.  Everything else is from the original post.

Thursday 13 - 100th Post, originally posted here at Trav's Thoughts on 8 February 2007.

Well gang, today is my 100th post.  YAY ME!  (Editor's note:  I just checked my dashboard and found that I recently posted #1400.)

In honor of this milestone occasion, my 13 today is a little different.  I met many of you over on the American Idol boards, specifically on the Taylor Hicks board.  We had great times and lots of fun.

And we celebrated milestone posts.  We celebrated with post parties and silliness.  We did some goofy stuff y'all.

For my 13 today, I present 13 of my favorite ways to celebrate a milestone post.  Don't worry if you have no idea what any of this means.  It's all about the silly!
  1. **tosses confetti and walnuts**
  2. **tosses flaming walnuts while juggling mittened kittens**  Note:  The mittens are so I don't get scratched.  (Editor's note:  I get that it doesn't make any sense.  How could I toss something while juggling something else?  Don't try to work it out.  Just go with the silly.)
  3. **does a hop jig, a soul twitch, and a left leg swing with extra thigh action while juggling leprechauns and singing in the rain**  Note:  Regrettably, sometimes a kitten gets dropped.  That's normally no big deal, 'cause kitties land on their feet.  But, see, the mittens make kitty feet very slippery.  Thus the move to leprechauns.
  4. **hops in the T-bird, screeches donuts in the driveway of the Original Soul Patrol place, breaks out in random song**  (Editor's note:  The Original Soul Patrol place was a thread that the moderators would constantly delete because it didn't really conform to the AI message board rules.  So we would restart it and continue to break the rules until they deleted it again.  It was one of those "run back home" threads, like a safe house where we congregated for conversation about anything.  That's what broke the rules...we were "off topic" in terms of not posting news or thoughts about our Idol.  But it was the way our community operated, before we discovered chat rooms.)
  5. **takes a quick running start, does a round off into successive back hand springs, followed by a punch front into a full twisting triple back somersault in pike position, sticks the landing without stepping out of bounds, vaults forward into a hand stand**  (Editor's note:  In my message board youth, I was a master gymnast and quite the amazing acrobat.)
  6. **plants feet, takes firm grasp of one wrist and one ankle, gets a good three spin wind-up, and tosses Gary Coleman with enough force to launch him into orbit**  Note:  Now you have to be careful with this particular celebration.  Most of the time we fail to heave Mr Coleman with sufficient trajectory and force to actually achieve stable orbit.  On those occasions we have special ships at sea to track his orbital decay on highly sophisticated radar.  Unfortunately, the radar has glitches and we inevitably lose track of Mr Coleman's re-entry.  Once, he actually crashed down in the OSP backyard and nearly killed the pool boy!  (Editor's note:  Clearly this is not so silly since Mr Coleman's death in May last year and there is no disrespect intended to his loved ones.)
  7. **see above, only substitute Emmanuel Lewis**  Note:  The diminutive star of the program Webster has a much higher success rate in achieving stable orbit.  Unfortunately, we tend to forget he's up there.
  8. No milestone celebration is complete without an open bar.  I'm a Gentleman Jack man myself, but we have a wide variety of spirits to satisfy the most diverse pallets.  For our Canadian Soul Patrollers, we have plenty of watered down American brews...wait...no, I've got that one mixed up.  We have all the best Canadian brews for our friends from north of the border.  Yeah - that's what I meant to say.  Oh yeah, for those non-drinkers we provide bottomless pitchers of ice cold milk and sweet tea - 2 of our man Taylor's favorite drinks. 
  9. We've had celebrations disrupted many times when someone forgot to shut the barn door and lock up the corral.  The cow gets a little crazy, llamas chase the ducks from thread to threat, while the twins Madness and Mayhem wreak havoc.  And then the Damm Duck breaks the thread and we all end up in banned camp.  (Editor's note:  This is one of those where you kind of had to be there.  I wish I had saved some of the threads to show you the sheer wackiness of the things people wrote.)
  10. Water balloons!  I almost forgot water balloons!  And whipped cream drawings of Onions and Ears and Tatas oh my!
  11. A favored spectacle during any milestone post celebration is the appearance of thread hoppers and the occasional flasher.  Sometimes all it takes is a little of this - (.)(.) - and you don't need a reason to celebrate.  Stare at 'em long enough...you'll figure out what they are.
  12. The party really gets hopping when the TK's show up.  TK stands for Thread Killers, but it's not what you think.  See, sometimes our board would be invaded by the dreaded trolls whose mission was to ruin all the fun and get people all ripped up and mad at each other. TK's started off as a thread for peeps who thought they were death to any thread they joined. Turns out, they are just about the sweetest group. They feel so bad about killing threads, that they just can't seem to let anyone be the last to post!! And when those dreadful trolls appear, TK's zoom into the thread and hi-jack it so fast, the troll has no choice but to begone!! And then the party is back on baby!!
  13. (Editor's note:  This last one is me being a flirt.  It pulls together the things that Soul Patrol gals love about Taylor's performances and was usually written out line by line in a chat or on a message board, as a tease with pauses in between to let people post their hoots and hollars.)  **puts on leather jacket, whips out harmonica, tilts head, batts eyelashes, wails Taylor-style on Tobbaco Road, bends knees, shakes tail with sexy mambo hip swivels, leather jacket flapping about the onion, numerous left leg swings with extra hip and thigh action, finishing with a fast and furious Taylor-go-round that makes me so dizzy I fall on the floor for one last fuzzy belly shot**
Now some of that stuff I didn't come up with.  I took what others had posted and made it my own...put my own silly spin on it, if you will.  The great thing about that Taylor Hicks message board and the Soul Patrollers who posted there was the sense of community.  We were fiercely devoted to voting our guy through every week.  We were dead serious about his talent and that drew us together.


In between working hard to bring in fans and votes, and to rebut the critics whenever and wherever we found them, we were outrageously silly.  The message boards, and later the chat rooms we ultimately established after Season 5 ended, always felt like we were actually in the room with each other.  Although we couldn't see or hear each other, the way we wrote in post after post made us feel as if we were.


It's hard to explain.  The boards felt real.  So when somebody wrote something like **tosses confetti**, it felt like a physical thing that had just been done.  And so we all piled in to write the things that we would do if we were all gathered together in a room actually tossing confetti.


Of course, if we'd really been together we probably wouldn't have been throwing flaming walnuts or juggling kittens...


At least, I don't think we would.

Good times. 

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wednesday Wonders

We wonderss thingssess...yesss precious, we doess.  


Like...

...why not take the few extra steps to put the shopping cart in the shopping cart corral?

...why would anyone think that words and images don't influence people?  Isn't that what a marketing campaign is all about?  An advertising executive tries to build a series of images and slogans to graphically and verbally influence consumers toward a particular product.  If rational consumers can be influenced to buy a cheeseburger from Jack-in-the-Box over one from Burger King, then why would anyone think that an irrational person couldn't be influenced by words or images to act on his own perception of what the words or images suggest to him?

...why do some want to rewrite our history, and the literature that describes it, because it doesn't conform to the modern version of morality they practice?  Instead, why not teach children how to think critically so that when they are exposed to something a modern mind might deem offensive, they can question it and determine for themselves what the words say about the time in which they were written?  I don't think kids are stupid.  I think over-protective and selfish adults do kids a disservice by not teaching the fundamentals of thinking, research, reasoning, and determining context.


...if any part of your statement or commentary about an issue includes the phrases "I don't have any experience with that" or "I haven't really taken time to research the facts", or any words to that effect, shouldn't you maybe consider withholding your opinion?  I mean, you certainly have a right to your thoughts about a situation regardless of whether you have any experience with it or knowledge of the facts surrounding it.  But you're a bit lacking in the credibility department to pass any kind of judgment, don't you think?

...why can't the sports networks understand that college basketball games run longer than 2 hours?  And that means that viewers who want to see the second game invariably miss the tip off, and a good portion of the first half waiting for the first game to finally end.

Yesss precious.  Those are just a few of the thingsses that we wonderss.

Make your Wednesday wonderful.

Wednesday Wonders

We wonderss thingssess...yesss precious, we doess.  


Like...

...why not take the few extra steps to put the shopping cart in the shopping cart corral?

...why would anyone think that words and images don't influence people?  Isn't that what a marketing campaign is all about?  An advertising executive tries to build a series of images and slogans to graphically and verbally influence consumers toward a particular product.  If rational consumers can be influenced to buy a cheeseburger from Jack-in-the-Box over one from Burger King, then why would anyone think that an irrational person couldn't be influenced by words or images to act on his own perception of what the words or images suggest to him?

...why do some want to rewrite our history, and the literature that describes it, because it doesn't conform to the modern version of morality they practice?  Instead, why not teach children how to think critically so that when they are exposed to something a modern mind might deem offensive, they can question it and determine for themselves what the words say about the time in which they were written?  I don't think kids are stupid.  I think over-protective and selfish adults do kids a disservice by not teaching the fundamentals of thinking, research, reasoning, and determining context.


...if any part of your statement or commentary about an issue includes the phrases "I don't have any experience with that" or "I haven't really taken time to research the facts", or any words to that effect, shouldn't you maybe consider withholding your opinion?  I mean, you certainly have a right to your thoughts about a situation regardless of whether you have any experience with it or knowledge of the facts surrounding it.  But you're a bit lacking in the credibility department to pass any kind of judgment, don't you think?

...why can't the sports networks understand that college basketball games run longer than 2 hours?  And that means that viewers who want to see the second game invariably miss the tip off, and a good portion of the first half waiting for the first game to finally end.

Yesss precious.  Those are just a few of the thingsses that we wonderss.

Make your Wednesday wonderful.

Wednesday Wonders

We wonderss thingssess...yesss precious, we doess.  


Like...

...why not take the few extra steps to put the shopping cart in the shopping cart corral?

...why would anyone think that words and images don't influence people?  Isn't that what a marketing campaign is all about?  An advertising executive tries to build a series of images and slogans to graphically and verbally influence consumers toward a particular product.  If rational consumers can be influenced to buy a cheeseburger from Jack-in-the-Box over one from Burger King, then why would anyone think that an irrational person couldn't be influenced by words or images to act on his own perception of what the words or images suggest to him?

...why do some want to rewrite our history, and the literature that describes it, because it doesn't conform to the modern version of morality they practice?  Instead, why not teach children how to think critically so that when they are exposed to something a modern mind might deem offensive, they can question it and determine for themselves what the words say about the time in which they were written?  I don't think kids are stupid.  I think over-protective and selfish adults do kids a disservice by not teaching the fundamentals of thinking, research, reasoning, and determining context.


...if any part of your statement or commentary about an issue includes the phrases "I don't have any experience with that" or "I haven't really taken time to research the facts", or any words to that effect, shouldn't you maybe consider withholding your opinion?  I mean, you certainly have a right to your thoughts about a situation regardless of whether you have any experience with it or knowledge of the facts surrounding it.  But you're a bit lacking in the credibility department to pass any kind of judgment, don't you think?

...why can't the sports networks understand that college basketball games run longer than 2 hours?  And that means that viewers who want to see the second game invariably miss the tip off, and a good portion of the first half waiting for the first game to finally end.

Yesss precious.  Those are just a few of the thingsses that we wonderss.

Make your Wednesday wonderful.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Take This Tune


My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

It's a shame that this feature isn't more popular.  I think it's a great way to combine music and writing.  It's not restrictive at all...you can write something or you can post another song inspired by the prompt.  You don't have to post on a special day...just pick up the prompt, usually posted by Friday afternoons but sometimes posted later in the weekend, and then put your post up sometime during the following week.

Then sign Mr Linky at the TTT blog and cruise around to read some great work.

This week's prompt is the song The House that Built Me, written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin, and performed by Miranda Lambert.  The task is to share a story about what makes me, me.



Grab your Mr Peabody glasses children because we're taking a trip in the Wayback Machine.  I first posted this story in July 2007.  Some of you may remember it, but it's also new to some others.


San Mateo Bridge
When I was about 10, my parents divorced and my younger sister and I were raised by our single mom.  We lived about an hour and a half from my grandmother, and so we made lots of weekend trips over to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit.  They were like mini vacations for us.  We would laugh and sing in the car during the entire drive.

I remember the time we tried to take a short cut through Hayward to get to the San Mateo Bridge.  We ended up lost!  If there was a way to lose a large body of water like a bay and a huge bridge...we found it!  But such were our little adventures.

Editor's note:  I have inherited that trait.  Just after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, while driving late at night in downtown San Francisco, I managed to lose the Bay Bridge.  But that's a story for another trip in the Wayback Machine.


Anyway, that shortcut turned out to be the best thing because we passed right by a 7-Eleven convenience store on a side street.  Once we figured out the short cut, we almost always used it and Mom would give in to our begging and stop for Slurpees.  Not always, but more often than not.  If she didn't, we'd have to wait until we got to Gram's.


My sister and I were Slurpee-holics in those days.


Gram was the best.  She was a fireplug of a redhead and she was so much fun when I was a kid.  She'd take us down to Tanforan Mall in San Bruno.  We'd have adventures in parking.  She'd drive and drive around the side lot next to the Sears entrance to the mall, waiting for "her" spot to open up right near the front.  My sister and I would play scout from the backseat, keeping an eye on the entrance and watching for people heading to their cars.  And then, just like that, Gram's spot would open up and she'd swing the big Caddy in like a pro.


Honestly!  Can you imagine a woman all of 4'9" wrangling a huge 1970's model Cadillac around a parking lot?


After our triumph in parking, we'd walk into the mall through Sears.  This was my first experience with any large shopping mall.  Gram would always take us to the toy store and the pet store.  Sometimes she'd need to stop at a shoe store, and she always picked the one next to the book store so we could browse while she got her shoes.


Then we'd head over to the Walgreen's.  Now back in those days at Tanforan, the Walgreen's was more than just a place where Gram could get her necessaries, as she called them.  Once in awhile we'd get new coloring books and the small boxes of new Crayola crayons.  Of course we'd lust after the big box of 64 with the built-in sharpener, but that was always reserved for a holiday or birthday gift.


But the Walgreen's...it was a drug store like it is today, but it also had a cafe/restaurant!  My sister and I were always on our best behavior with limited fidgeting and whining during the shopping phase of our outing, because we knew that after all that good behavior we'd get grilled cheese and hot fudge sundaes at the Walgreen's cafe/restaurant.


The best thing though...the ultimate...the grandest thing about going to Gram's was that she lived around the corner from a 7-Eleven.  Can you imagine anything better for a couple of Slurpee-holics?  After a day of racing Big Wheels down the big hill, or building Legos and Tinker Toys in the backyard, or drawing and coloring on the big dining room table, Gram would hand us a dollar and send us around the corner for Slurpees.


My grandmother has been gone for more than 20 years.  But my grandfather still lives in that same house.  And right around the corner is that same 7-Eleven.  In fact, in 2006 when I went down for my cousin's wedding, my sister and I introduced my niece to the joy of walking around the corner for a Slurpee.


So what makes me, me?  


Memories.


Memories of my redheaded spitfire Gram, and Caddy wrangling in a parking lot, and Walgreen's grilled cheese and hot fudge sundaes, and Crayola crayons, and getting lost as an adventure, and Slurpees.


So many memories.
 

Cho